Jim Wallis and The Pesky Gap
So tonight I went to hear Jim Wallis (author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get it) speak about faith, politics, hope, and what issues are really worth Christians fighting for. He talked about how the most vocal Christians in America are focused all around two issues: Abortion and Gay Marriage. And he didn't say those weren't important issues, but rather those are not the most important issues...especially given the 2,000 verses in the Bible about caring for the poor. He finds ending poverty to be priority #1, and wants to reclaim the idea (that has existed in African-American Evangelical churches forever already) that this is the moral issue worth fighting for.
And I definitely agree with his point. (Though, perhaps in a future entry, maybe after my 30 day restriction has ended, I will talk about whether and how it can make sense, as Christians, to fight to gain more prominence and power politically...that is for another time.)
But the thing that kills me--about myself and about everyone else--is how great a disconnect there is between what we profess to believe, and how we live. For example, right after Jim Wallis' speech ended to a standing ovation (which was taking place in a large church auditorium at Emory University), I was waiting for someone to let me out of my row, and no one would stop their walk down the aisle to let me out. And I wasn't angry about it, it just seemed so ironic. We had just spent 2 hours being good liberals and listening to a guy talk about how we need to fight to end poverty and racisim, and we can't even love the people around us enough to let them out of their aisle.
And that irony of faith pains me, as well as exists in me (see previous entry). I really want my actions to match up with what I say, in every moment of my everyday life, and they don't. I could name 5 people at my school here that I really don't like (maybe more), and I rarely even try to love them. And I say negative things about them behind their backs, and sometimes treat them condescendingly. This is not good. This does not match up with what I profess to believe about the intrinsic value and belovedness of all people.
And yes, there is grace for me and I'm sinful and fallen and will never be perfect. Trust me, I'm well aware of that. But I also believe in a God who is powerful enough to transform my heart and my life, and to lessen the gap between my preaching and my practice.
So God, if you're reading this, and I do think you are, please do lessen that gap. Thanks. You Rock.
And I definitely agree with his point. (Though, perhaps in a future entry, maybe after my 30 day restriction has ended, I will talk about whether and how it can make sense, as Christians, to fight to gain more prominence and power politically...that is for another time.)
But the thing that kills me--about myself and about everyone else--is how great a disconnect there is between what we profess to believe, and how we live. For example, right after Jim Wallis' speech ended to a standing ovation (which was taking place in a large church auditorium at Emory University), I was waiting for someone to let me out of my row, and no one would stop their walk down the aisle to let me out. And I wasn't angry about it, it just seemed so ironic. We had just spent 2 hours being good liberals and listening to a guy talk about how we need to fight to end poverty and racisim, and we can't even love the people around us enough to let them out of their aisle.
And that irony of faith pains me, as well as exists in me (see previous entry). I really want my actions to match up with what I say, in every moment of my everyday life, and they don't. I could name 5 people at my school here that I really don't like (maybe more), and I rarely even try to love them. And I say negative things about them behind their backs, and sometimes treat them condescendingly. This is not good. This does not match up with what I profess to believe about the intrinsic value and belovedness of all people.
And yes, there is grace for me and I'm sinful and fallen and will never be perfect. Trust me, I'm well aware of that. But I also believe in a God who is powerful enough to transform my heart and my life, and to lessen the gap between my preaching and my practice.
So God, if you're reading this, and I do think you are, please do lessen that gap. Thanks. You Rock.
posted by bethany at 7:48 PM
2 Comments:
That guy is the real deal. I heard him on The Daily Show promoting that book and his magazine, Sojourners. One of the few times I've ever heard a Christian speak on mainstream TV and not cray-zay.
how ironic. its like a jim wallis lecture on the simpsons.
i must say, i have seen wallis speak twice in the past year, and i was dissapointed both times. the talks i heard were more or less sloganeering, especially him lots of things that get applause, but that no one is going to actually disagree with ('we should help the poor', 'its not ok for people to starve') when it got to real argument for contested points, however, i thought the talks were thin. so, the whole thing felt like a pep rally for people who already agree.
an irony about wallis, i think, is the way that he always talks about unity/reconciliation and being centrist. and what he faults the christian right for is distancing themselves from others. but of course, that's exactly what he's doing with the right -that is, he wants to say he's the big bridge builder, but he only says this by criticizing, not bridging with, the christian right. he preaches against distancing oneself by others, but then he derives all this support by pointing at the christian right and yelling "i'm not those idiots!"
now, i am not a republican, and i think that much of the christian right (and evangelical christianity in general) is depressingly misguided. at the same time, i was saddened by wallis when i saw him. he struck me as somehow who used to be a real outsider, even a prophet, but who has now learned to play the political game with best of them. everything was too slick, too prepared, too self-congratulatory.
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